Watching Satyamev Jayate you'd be forgiven to think you are celebrating India's 41st year of Independence and not 71st, such is the influence of 1980s films on this action drama.
There's a vigilante with badla on his mind, a cat-and-mouse game between the cop and criminal, a family tragedy, the quintessential twist before interval, and a token heroine whose purpose is mystifying until the very end.
Veer (John Abraham) takes on the task of cleaning up the widespread corruption in Mumbai police. And he does it with swag. All he needs is a hoodie, his brawny physique, a matchbox and a filmmaker with a penchant for slo-mo and dialoguebaazi to eliminate the messy lot. When he isn't keeping an eye on tainted officers in different parts of Mumbai, he lives in a swanky bachelor's pad and is a contender for the burliest Indian painter alive.
The man in his way is Shivansh (Manoj Bajpayee) but of course the most imaandar and akalmand man in the police force. It's a hard-to-digest fact given the house he lives in.
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Appointed to find the perpetrator of the murders and put the police force at ease, he finds himself dealing with a tough cookie but his mind is ingenious enough to deduce the ridiculous strategy that Veer has up his sleeves. Entertainment here comes in seeing Shivansh scream at Veer the vigilante on the phone as if threats delivered at high decibel will see him crumble. The exaggerated background score here inadvertently acts as a cue for laughs.
John Abraham meets the physical needs of the part but when it comes to the melodrama-laden scenes struggles. It doesn't help that part of his acting brief is to scream like Incredible Hulk every time he punches a bad police officer which is most of Satyamev Jayate. Bajpayee left to shoulder a chunk of the hysterics has a pragmatic approach to the limited offerings. The action sequences are as much an eyesore as Veer's charcoal paintings of horrified faces.
And yet there is a perverse pleasure to be derived from some of the exchanges in Satyamev Jayate. Zaveri has a wayward sense of humour which pops up sporadically to guarantee that Satyamev Jayate is never taken too seriously. But is it an intentional move? To justify Veer's repute as a lean, mean killing machine a poorly enacted flashback sequence is conjured which only drags the film.
With the clock ticking past the two hour mark, all the spiel on farz, izzat, imaandari is too familiar. You are left with a realisation: truth hurts but Satyamev Jayate hurts more.